A common task facing a user while operating a computer-implemented program is to select elements from an electronic list. Often these elements consist of more than one word, the words being separated by a space or other separating character such as a hyphen, dot, or underscore. This applies for example to electronic lists comprising persons' names, where each element in the list typically comprises at least a first name and a last name. It also applies to lists of folder names, file names, video titles, audio titles, book titles, document titles, or the like.
Existing methods to select a textual list element require the user to scroll through the list. Alternatively, with an incremental search method, as for instance used in “Google suggest”, the user may start entering the text of the desired list element in a respective search field. While entering text into the search field the user is presented—with each letter entered—a progressively and incrementally smaller sub-selection of the list. The user can at any point scroll through the sub-selection of the list to select the desired list element. Alternatively, the user can keep typing until the selected list element has been distinctly filtered.
Depending on the number and on the structure of list elements, this can be time consuming and tedious. It is therefore desirable to provide a more efficient method to select textual elements from electronic lists.
Another problem facing many users of existing computer-implemented programs is that they are difficult to use. This applies to computers and other devices like palmtops, handhelds, mobile and stationary telephones, cameras, video, audio, and navigation devices, appliances and so forth. To enter a command in known programs and devices, the user has to typically navigate through several menus until reaching the desired command. Or the user has to click a respective icon using a computer mouse or the like, or his fingers when operating a touch screen. Or the user has to press special keys or key combinations. Or the user has to combine these methods.
This traditional way of entering commands has several disadvantages:                a) The menu structure which is often the only way for a user to complete a task usually requires several steps of user interaction and is not intuitive.        b) In order to use the computer mouse or the like, the user has to move his hand away from the keyboard and precisely position the mouse cursor to the respective spot on the screen. This can be time consuming and tedious.        c) Icons have to be known and found. Moreover, icons are usually not available for all commands.        d) Key combinations usually do not give a clue to the command's meaning and differ in different computer-implemented programs on computers and other devices. As a consequence the user would have to memorize key combinations for each computer-implemented program, in order to efficiently use them.        
Another disadvantage is that users happen to accidentally and unwillingly enter key combinations while editing text. This often leads to undesired effects. Sometimes the work of several hours can get messed up.
It is therefore desirable to provide an improved method to operate computer-implemented programs.